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PayPal does not like Guns, Soldiers or Soldier’s Angels

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This is a hot topic this morning in the â€œmilblogosphereâ€. My buds over at Blackfive.net (both Blackfive himself and Laughing Wolf) felt so strong about this they put up two postings about it HERE and HERE.

The raffle tickets could be purchased through paypal, however it appears that pay-palâ€™s anti-constitution and gun views have caused them to shut down the entire account for this fund-raiser which provides an awesome product and service to our wounded warriors.

Online donations through PayPal are a huge part of our fundraising. They shut down our entire account-not just the raffle buttonâ€”for twelve hours right in the middle of an email fundraising push. Looking at the Terms of Use, we couldnâ€™t understand where weâ€™d gone wrong, but we had to immediately remove the raffle so we could get back online ASAP. This just breaks our hearts because we were so excited about the tremendous fundraising impact the Gun Blogger Rendezvous raffle was already having.

Should’ve read their acceptable use policy. If they don’t want anything to do with the sale of weapons, that’s their choice…it would probably be a nightmare for them to try to regulate that, not to mention their legal liability if someone is hurt by a weapon sold through them.

Nothing “anti-constitution” about it, unless PayPal became part of the US government when I wasn’t looking? (Remembering that the second amendment applies to the government and not to private companies.)
.-= Adam´s last blog ..The Airborne Toxic Event =-.

Bouhammer, sure they’re not exactly the same, but the intent of their policy is clearly to prohibit any transactions relating to weapons. In any case, it would have been prudent to check with them first.

Kitchen Dispatch, was that directed to me? If so, I’m not sure what their charitable status has to do with it.

I’ve seen paypalsucks.com before â€“Â a lot of people have genuine complaints about PayPal, but I don’t think they’re specifically “anti-gun” and it’s certainly not fair to say that they don’t like soldiers.
.-= Adam´s last blog ..The Airborne Toxic Event =-.

Adam, no it wasn’t directed at you.
It did seem rather unbusinesslike for them to pull the plug on the operation mid-stream, especially since they’ve done business w/ SA for awhile. I wonder if they sent SA a note saying …uhmm…no, you can’t do that, here is the reason in the contract you signed, please take it down. I mean, it’s what they should have done rather than taking away their privileges mid stream.

I think the “no weapons clause” is there because there might be liability issues they don’t want to take on. But on the other hand, they are a business and reserve the right to run it as they see fit.